Stossel Interviews Brook on Greed

I don't know how I managed to miss this, but John Stossel of Reason Magazine interviewed Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute about a month ago.

The video interview (embedded below) is under eight minutes long and both efficiently challenges misconceptions about self-interest and introduces the viewer to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

All I would add -- because the video shows a clip from a suboptimal movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged -- is that the book is definitely better than the movie.

Politicians from both major parties could stand to view this, but millions of voters instead would do...

As he always does, Stossel condenses the video into a short column, and -- also as usual -- even the long-time advocate of Rand's ideas stands to learn something from it.

In this column, I learned of the latest major example of private enterprise running circles around a government attempt to offer a service outside its proper scope:

Governments sometimes try to build things, but they routinely fail. California promised high-speed commuter rail service. Seventeen years, and billions of tax dollars later, no trains.

But in just three years, a "selfish" private company, Brightline, built a train line [that] carries commuters and tourists from Miami to Orlando. At no cost to taxpayers.

With both parties now spewing the same kind of nonsense about capitalism and imposing more government control over the economy, it is good to be able to refer the occasional thoughtful person to a voice or two of sanity.

This interview is worth keeping in mind for those rare times one finds oneself conversing with someone who is well aware that both political tribes are way off course and is interested a finding or building better alternative to both.

-- CAV